[if you want some really pretty background music while you read this blog-scroll down and click play]
My family isn't huge on crazy traditions.
Every year the following happens:
- I go shopping with my Aunt Marie the 23rd and the 24th. The first present we buy is always for me.
- We always buy Traders Joe's chocolate milk and tangerine juice.
- And I always sit on my Grandma's puzzle piece couch and drink coffee with chocolate milk in it.
- For the most part all of the presents in my house get wrapped on Christmas Eve. When I was little they would all just show up on Christmas morning
- My dad grows his beard out until Christmas day. After we eat breakfast and open presents at my grandma's my dad comes home and shaves off his beard
- also? my dad is Santa
- We have a HUGE Christmas breakfast. It's without a doubt the best meal of the year. Tamales, cinnamon rolls, danishes, eggs, bacon, sausage….
- we've been known to eat all day.
- Shrimp Cocktail is at 3. [this is for every holiday]
- You missed Shrimp Cocktail? Sucks to be you.
- My Aunt Sue makes my favorite holiday cookies.
- There are lots of kids. An endless supply.
- So there are lots of toys
- And lots of laughter of adults trying to get said toys out of boxes
- and just lots of laughter in general.
Over the past few years, I've been the one to wrap all of those presents on Christmas Eve. So I've started a new tradition. After the presents are wrapped, after the living room is prepped for the madness that is my nieces and nephews; I light 5 candles and turn off all of the lights except for the Christmas ones and I ponder Christmas.
But?
Pondering these days takes a lot of work.
Because there is WAY too much to think about.
That list is too long.
So I happened upon one person in the Christmas Story.
And it's not a new thought or idea.
You see, this week I went with my bestest friend and her whole family [though, once again if the Roman Guards asked..I am her sister] to the Bethlehem Experience that the Mennonite church puts on.
It was wonderful.
I think my favorite was seeing how calm Mary was; seeing her sitting there in the hay in this manger cuddling this little baby.
And seeing how ordinary she was. And how young. And how much responsibility she had.
And it was all because she jumped into the story God had for her. And that story wasn't simple. It wasn't easy. It was…
Yes, I am going to be going completely and utterly out of my comfort zone. To culture upon culture. And I am going to have to learn to figure out how to cope with what is thrown out at me.
But it's still life. I just have to re-learn how to deal. With the people around me, the culture, the language. Life.
I'm just choosing to step into life a little (ok not SO little) differently this year. Choosing to live a different story.
And I am just so much more grateful for their bravery this year.
As a preschool teacher, each year we had a Christmas program and our JK [Junior Kindergarten] would have parts in the "play" portion of it. And one year the little boy who played Joseph was Hudson. I'll never forget him asking me what HE should do [because of course, Mary (Alyssa) was holding the baby]. I told him that God had given Joseph the job of protecting Mary, being there for her.
down the aisle with all of the people looking at her)
And Hudson looked at me in all seriousness,
placed his hand on Alyssa's back and said
"Yah, I think I can do that"
What is God asking you to do this year for Him? How does He want to take you, as an ordinary person, and give you the tools and gifts for you to do extraordinary things?
I pray that you have a wonderfully beautiful Christmas.
I pray the Christ reveals himself to you through the giving and love of others.
And I pray that you begin to step into this new year with hope, joy, restoration
and with the heart and knowledge that God wants to do something EXTRAORDINARY through you
